Instant Pot Seafood Japchae is a gluten-free noodle dish your family will love. The quintessential Korean noodle dish that’s popular can be tedious to make but not if you use my method of using the Instant Pot or any other electric pressure cooker!
4cwarm waterdivided, for soaking the noodles and dried shiitake mushrooms
1tablespoonavocado oil
6ozonionsliced
1teaspoonminced garlic
1teaspoonminced ginger
4oz.carrotjulienned
½csliced dried shiitake mushroomsor 1 cup sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms
3oz.thinly sliced red or yellow or orange bell pepper
4oz.fresh broccolinicut lengthwise in about ⅛" thickness
3ozAsian chivescut in 3" lengths (optional)
3scallions2 julienned and 1 finely chopped
1lb.mixed seafood medley
2tablespoontamari or soy sauce
2teaspoonsesame oildivided
1tablespoonmirin or rice wineoptional
1teaspoonsesame seeds
Instructions
Soak the sweet potato noodles in 3 cups of water in a large bowl for 2 minutes. Make sure all the noodles are completely immersed in water. If the noodles are too long, cut them in about 8" lengths so they will be easier to fit in the bowl and the inner pot.
After 3 minutes, strain the noodles and discard the water. Loosely cover the noodles and set aside.
Soak the dried shiitake mushrooms in 1 c of water and set aside. If using fresh shiitake mushrooms, you don't need to soak in water.
Turn on the electric pressure cooker on "Sauté" on the highest temperature setting. Insert the inner pot and add 1 tablespoon of avocado oil.
When the oil is hot, sauté the onion, garlic, and ginger for 1 minute. Add the carrots, mushrooms with the soaking water (or fresh mushrooms if using,) bell peppers, broccolini, chives, if using, and julienned scallions in layers, and do not stir.
Place the seafood medley on top of the vegetables. If there are any liquids from the mix, add them to the inner pot as well. It's ok to use frozen seafood mix as long as you can fit them inside the inner pot. If the frozen pack is big block of ice, it's best to defrost a little so you can break off the pieces before putting the pieces in the inner pot. They don't have to be totally defrosted but separated enough to fit in the inner pot.
Add the sweet potato noodles on top of the vegetables in a criss-cross pattern.
Add the Tamari or soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, and mirin, if using. Add the remaining water, if using fresh shiitake mushrooms.
Close the lid, turn the steam release handle to "Sealing" and press "CANCEL", then "Pressure Cooker/Manual" button and set the timer to 2 minutes on HIGH pressure.
When the timer ends, carefully turn the steam release handle to "Venting" and release the pressure quickly. When the float valve drops down, open the lid carefully.
Add the remaining sesame oil, sea salt, and black pepper to taste.
You will notice there's extra liquid/sauce at the bottom of the inner pot. That's perfectly normal. With a pair of tongs, mix the noodles and the rest of the ingredients well so all the ingredients are well incorporated without breaking or bruising the vegetables.
Once it's mixed, loosely cover, and let it rest for 5 minutes .
When ready to serve, gently mix, plate the noodles, garnish with chopped scallions and sesame seeds and serve immediately.
Video
Notes
Seafood Japchae made in the pressure cooker will have extra sauce/liquid when it's done. Mix the noodles and vegetables and set aside for 5 minutes before serving so it has a chance to soak up the sauce. Pro Tip: Transfer the noodles to a large pot or a sheet pan to mix if the inner pot is too confining to mix. Sweet potato noodles: when buying sweet potato noodles (or Dang Myon) at the Asian grocery store, make sure it's made with 100% sweet potatoes and not rice or wheat. There are several brands that offer this wiry, greyish transparent noodles. Chung Jung One has types that are already cut in 8", packaged in 2 servings. Other brands will have large packages and they are fine too. Just make sure to cut them after they're soaked so you don't end up with very long noodles. Use kitchen scissors cut the noodles after they were soaked and softer before cooking for easier handling.Broccolini: The traditional recipe uses spinach but for this Instant Pot method, I wanted to use hardy a vegetable to cook at the same time without losing its texture and color. If you prefer spinach, you can substitute it but add it at the end after japchae is done. Mushrooms: Traditional japchae uses dried shiitake and wood ear mushroom. Dried shiitake mushrooms have more umami after being rehydrated so for this recipe, I recommend using the dried and the water that the mushrooms were soaked in. Wood Ear mushrooms are trickier to find at local grocery store so I omitted it from this recipe but if you can find fresh wood ear mushrooms, you can add them too. If you can't find dried shiitake or fresh wood ear mushrooms, you can use the more common white mushrooms. I don't recommend using Portobello mushrooms since they will turn the dish darker and their strong flavor will not complement the seafood in this case.